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Wednesday, 2 May 2007

Hang them by first available lamp post !

It is a Babubhai Katara or several others involved in human trafficking or smuggling people abroad, they have no case for any pardon. The crime assumes graver propotions when the people so involved happen tobe Members of Parliament. It is a pity to hear a M.P. pleading that “…I was given only Rs.8 lakh. I really don’t know if they (other accomplices) charged Rs.30 or 40 lakh for sending people abroad with me”. This is what Babubhai Katara, M.P. explained to police. Looks like as if the poor man didn’t get enough of amount for the service he rendered to the Nation and the people. In other words, the service he rendered deserved a remuneration in a bigger measure. The incident is not just confined to a singular M.P. –there are many who have been found lucratively indulging themselves into such nefarious activities tarnishing the image normally a public representative of a high status is supposed to carry.

Why do these shameless fellows need so much money.for which they don’t hesitate the least in introducing some body else’s wife as their wife and some body else’s children as their children and that too times without number in furtherance of their job of human trafficking and smuggling people outside the country.. The amount they are paid in normal course by way of their salary, perquisites,allowances and the likes is dozens of times bigger than what their predecessors used to get a few decades back. Conceptwise, there was infact nothing like any salary fixed for a Member of Parliament initially on the ground that they were not the employees appointed as such but were just the representatives elected as such by the people to voice their cause in Parliament and elsewhere. None could have ever imagined that this ‘elsewhere’ may some day mean human trafficking and smuggling people out of the country for money or raise questions in Parliament on a price. When some demand on that count was raised by some of the M.Ps, some salary was frugally introduced but it was strictly optional –only those M.Ps were to get this amount who specifically gave their option that they wanted it. It was not generalized. The idea was not to make it an office of profit.

There is a sky change since then. The M.Ps are now sumptuously paid all sorts of amenities like number of telephone connections, flats/bungalows, transport, mobiles, computers and any imaginable convenience tool for them and their families. Costliest computers and laptops are provided to many such M.Ps who don’t even know an abc of their use. Still every now and then there is a demand raised for increase in their salary,allowances and the likes and when put up it is quite unanimously okayed by the House within seconds. Security is provided to them irrespective of the reality whether they actually need it. An army of security personnel is at their disposal more as a matter of ‘status symbol’ than any need. The first Prime Minister of India Pt.Jawahar Lal Nehru, most dynamic and loved most by the people of the country, had no security like this for himself. After Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, when the then Home Minister Sardar Patel wanted to post necessary security for the Prime Minister, Pt Nehru refused but strong willed as Sardar Patel was he did do it telling that after ‘Bapu’s assassination’ he was not for taking any risk for ‘Jawahar’.

How different are the leaders today. If they are no match to leaders like Pt Nehru, Sardar Patel,and their co leaders earlier, they should atleast be the ones to behave normal without resorting to the sort of a loot they are pertpetrating on our country with their neck deep involvement in all sorts of scandals going for bribes, human trafficking and the like to satisfy their lust for money and wealth.

Such representatives elected to the highest forum of the country possibly can’t behave themselves and are all out on a loot spree blackening the face of the Nation as the instant incident is not a solitary instance in its direction. Sounds crude and harsh, but the fact remains that such people should no more be allowed to put the country on sale and they must be adequately punished –they deserve to be hanged by the first available lamp post.